as a committee member one of my duties are to welcome new comers to this wonderful sport,and in doing so i would like to refer any new cacher to join our association ,its free and for all cachers,in aiding new comers that are not as familiar with gps's and since there are so many variety of models out there,i would like to take a poll on all our members on what model they use,so i could cross reference new cachers to more experience cachers and their corresponding gps,a great way for other cachers to meet or just email advise to one-another,i'm not asking all members to publically announce their models but rather you email me at, " polarbeardiggers@netscape.net" i will record the information you provide,and keep on hand for all newcomers that need help and have question,i would appreciate all cachers with their cooperation in your help for this poll,.thankyou,.

I have a Garmin eTrex Legend, a Magellan Meridian Platinum, and a Garmin GPSmap 60c. I'm not in Manitoba, but certainly willing to help via email if I can. I also have the routing software for the Platinum and the 60c and could answer questions about that too.

Next time I am in Winnipeg, I want to test out how good the mapping is for the Garmin 60c. I have City Select North America v6 and it's supposed to cover all of the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. I've used it in southern Ontario, and it works well there.

Currently I'm using an Etrex Venture (Green) Relativly inexpensive, quite reliable with Waas, a thumb stick to enter data, down loadable points of intrest, and good battery life. The drawbacks; black and white screen and no mapping are the only thing I can say against it. I give it a 7 out of 10.

BB & I use two gps units - the first one is Garmin 12XL. This is so called old technology but works very well and for geocaching has gotten us to many caches . The second unit is an Garmin e-trex Legend. This a new unit for us and we are still learning what it can and cannot do . We will let you know in a few months how it works out

For geocaching I presently use and Garmin GPS V. It has routing and 19 MB of memory for maps which allows me to load street level for all of Winnipeg, southern Manitoba, Lake of the Woods and Topo maps for the same areas.

My old GPS, now retired to my amateur radio/truck tracking system, is a GPS III plus. Good workhorse but no routing and vey little memory for maps.

Both of these allow me to look at the map, distance to cache and pointer to cache at the same time on the same screen. More info is always good in my books! Both also have removable antennas which is good for mounting in my truck with an external antenna. External antennas can sure pull in more satellites!

Gord from Morris uses a Garmin eTrek Venture and uses it alot for various farming things like cacluating the area of a field, marking quack grass patches in his fields, tracking his tractor movements via amateur radio and of course geocaching. No routing and not much memory for maps.

I also have lots of Garmin MapSource SW including City Select, MetroGuide Canada and Topo Canada.

I'm not really sure where to post this info but it does relate to GPSrs. Right now, XScargo on St. James Ave. has about 24 Magellan Meridian colour screen units on sale for $250.00, regular $350. Considering you will pay about $150 at Wallymart for a cruddy little monochrome Etrex, this is an awesome deal. I use the Thales Mobilemapper of this unit (commercial, mapping enhanced software version). The unit comes with the data cord and has the ability to insert a SD card (not included) to load maps, save data, etc. An awesome deal for anyone looking at moving up. Tends to be a power pig if you leave the backlight on all the time but a very rugged unit (even survives flying off the roof of cars moving at 80 km with minor scratches!! This is experience talking.)

Still primarily using the Garmin Geko 201 (with an power cable in the vehicle) and download the caches through GSAK into Streets and Trips mapping and use the PDA for the mapping/paperless caching. The Geko is the most kid friendly, is very easy to create manul waypoints with and gets the signal in dense forest better than most. I'd never part with it and neither would my son. I can hardly wait for the Garmin 60C that we're dreaming of but I can imagine still having the Geko along to make certain we're we ought to be. We seldom use the WAAS feature since it sucks battery juice and we have found it unnecessary for finding caches. Cache on!

I use an Etrex Legend. I have had it for about 4 years and use it in the aircraft all the time. It is as accurate as the 10 to 30 thousand dollar ones that are designed for aircraft use. It just is not as fancy and it won't do some things, but it was not designed to do them. For caching it is an excellent choice. Very easy to use, not too expensive and good battery life. The only drawback may be the small screen size, but that may be a bonus since it is more compact. I always use rechargable NiMH batteries and even after 4 years and hundreds of quick charges they still work just fine.

I use a 60CS and a Forerunner 301. I keep the old yellow Etrex around for a spare or for when friends come along. I use my Palm with cachemate, I have Canada top, USA topo and City Select maps installed as required.

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